The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

EDITORIALS

India & changeover in China

THE Chinese have perfected a novel strategy for ensuring the Communist Party’s hold over society and the country’s administration. The strategy stands for according primacy to economic issues under all circumstances. This means maintaining political stability at home and working for a peaceful global environment with a special focus on regional issues. The smooth leadership changeover in China should be seen in this backdrop. Handing over the baton to younger leaders is being widely appreciated. But this does not mean any significant change in the country’s basic policies. The new Chinese helmsman, Mr Hu Jintao, is not expected to deviate from the path shown by the outgoing President, Mr Jiang Zemin. In any case, the elderly leader is very much there in a position to show Mr Hu the door if he makes the mistake of shifting the focus from the “economy above all else”. After all, Mr Jiang remains the head of the powerful Central Military Commission, and six of the nine Politburo Standing Committee members are his own men, part of the Shanghai Clique. Mr Jiang has presided over his country’s destiny for the past 13 years emphasising that economic reforms must be pursued vigorously in the interest of the Chinese Communist Party’s survival as a robust political force. But this basic goal, in his view, could be achieved by maintaining stable and friendly relations with the world’s economic hub, the USA. Thus, the Chinese seem to be prepared to go to any extent for speeding up their economic march — attracting billions of dollars as FDI for an 8 per cent-plus growth level.

There is a great opportunity waiting for India in China. The communist giant has resolved its disputes with Russia and Vietnam by adopting a pragmatic approach. From time to time it has been sending feelers to India too for bringing about a qualitative change in the relations between the two great neighbours. Beijing, perhaps, believes that its relationship with Islamabad should not come in the way of having friendly ties with New Delhi. In view of the bitter experience of the Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai days, India has to move cautiously. But this does not mean that India and China should not come forward for ushering in a new era of partnership for regional and world peace. India must try to convince China that both need each other for their mutual benefit. The Chinese are well-focused on every area of their national interest. Their handling of political problems also reflects this healthy attitude. India too can acquire this trait provided consensus politics gets preference over destructive or negative politics. But first of all-India should learn from China how not to allow anything which threatens to cripple economic activity. Such a growth strategy will definitely give a new and development-oriented direction to politics. This is what India needs badly.

Interlinking river waters

THE Union Government’s decision to set up a task force for interlinking inter-state river waters follows the Supreme Court’s directive in this regard last October. Unfortunately, the idea mooted by a noted irrigation expert, Dr K.L. Rao, in the early sixties did not find favour with successive governments. In addition to tackling recurrent drought and floods, it will accrue many benefits for the country as a whole. In the last few months, this proposal has received support from various quarters. President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani are in favour of interlinking rivers. Thus, the present government should be able to pursue things to their logical conclusion. In this gigantic task, it might face problems with some co-basin states, if the continuing disputes between them are any indication. However, the proposed task force should be able to devise a suitable and effective mechanism for bringing about a consensus among the states, prioritise projects and work out modalities for project funding and implementation. The states will have to realise that water is a national asset; it is not the monopoly of any particular state. Geographical or territorial boundaries do not matter when the issue is one of national interest and the general well-being. In this context, the Supreme Court has rightly suggested that the Centre should play the role of a leader and enlist the support of the states while conceiving, planning and executing the proposal. This will be in conformity with the federal spirit of governance. In this context, the apex court has specifically suggested the insertion of a special provision in the Union List of the Constitution to empower the Centre to provide the necessary leadership in this task.

Optimal development and utilisation of water resources can be achieved through the inter-basin transfer of this resource from surplus to deficit basins. Interlinking rivers is expected to remove the anomaly of regional imbalances in water availability for irrigation and drinking purposes. The Centre envisages three major links — one in the South and two in the North. The Southern Water Grid seeks to interlink the Mahanadi, the Godavari, the Krishna, the Cauvery, the Pennar and the Vaigai in Peninsular India to transfer surplus waters of the Mahanadi and the Godavari to deficit areas to benefit Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry. In the North, one is to link the Brahmaputra with the Ganga, the Subarnarekha and the Mahanadi to transfer surplus water of the Brahmaputra to benefit areas in Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa. The second is to interlink the Gandak, the Ghagra, the Sarada and the Yamuna to Rajasthan and Sabarmati for transferring surplus waters of the Gandak and the Ghagra to benefit areas in Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Bihar and Jharkhand. Keeping in view the volume and scope of the project, it is doubtful whether the Centre can meet the target set by the Supreme Court — 2012. However, it can make a good beginning and set the ball rolling. Funds are, of course, a problem. It is said that the Centre needs Rs 20,000 crore a year to execute the project. However, resource mobilisation should not be difficult as the project will yield rich dividends in the long run. The Centre needs to meet the challenge through careful and judicious fiscal planning and management. For instance, it may raise resources from international agencies and budgetary allocations by stopping unmerited subsidies to affluent sections.

OPINION

Crisis in agrarian economy
Farmers restive following huge income loss
Balraj Mehta

THE deep-rooted crisis in the agrarian economy has once again become stark in India this year. The talk of “crisis of plenty” and India becoming a power in international trade of agricultural commodities has stopped. The fall in the production of agricultural commodities this year, according to the latest survey, is likely to be 20 per cent in the case of cereals and even more in the case of edible oils, pulses and vegetables. This means a huge loss of incomes for farmers, which has made them restive.

The farmers in UP are reportedly burning the sugarcane crop because sugar factories are not picking it up at “remunerative” prices. There are complaints that since foodgrains are not being procured this year by government agencies, small and even middle farmers have to sell their marketable surpluses to private traders at less than the minimum support price.

The problem of feeding urban population and non-agricultural labour force had become by the middle of sixties a stumbling block in the way of social stability and economic growth. Reliance on aided imports of foodgrains entailed political risks. But what is called the Green Revolution has resolved this problem.

This happened because of the radical policy shift from institutional reform to technological improvement in farming. The expansion of irrigation on private account, and the sale at subsidised prices of chemical fertilisers, pesticides and quality seeds registered a relatively big advance and helped enhance the production and productivity of farmers with access to these facilities. Since the farmers with marketable surplus were at the same time assured of rising levels of incentive procurement prices, the government could mop up adequate quantities of agricultural produce, especially of foodgrains, for domestic consumption as well as exports.

But the price paid for improvement in production and productivity of viable farmers and securing marketable surpluses from them has now become unsustainable. The gains derived from agricultural production and productivity have been monopolised in their entirety by the rich farmers who constitute hardly 10 per cent of the farming population. Resources for investment and relief to those segments of farmers who have no viable assets, especially in land, have consequently eroded and the processes of balanced economic growth in the rural areas has been blocked instead of receiving a boost from agricultural growth. Rich farmers have meanwhile become economically strong and politically influential. They have demanded and secured, by and large, the determination of prices for agricultural produce to be governed relative to the highest prices which can be fetched in the global market and not by any reference to a system or structure of relative prices of goods or labour (that is, wages) in the domestic market.

What may be regarded as positive returns from what is called the Green Revolution for economic development, social advance and mass welfare had been achieved by the mid-seventies. There have since been diminishing, if not negative, returns from it. Official policy has, however, attempted to persist with more of the same policy instruments — modern subsidised inputs for commercial farming by rich, gentlemen farmers. Subsistence, labour-intensive farming has been regarded irrelevant in the design for the “modernisation” of Indian agriculture. The smug view was entertained that a high degree of resilience had been imparted to the agricultural sector and sharp fluctuations in agricultural production could be managed. The required investment to achieve irrigation and land development for labour-intensive farming was avoided and was combined with the weakening of agricultural research and extension services in the eighties. What is worse, the official policy strengthened the grip of the landed gentry, and the rich commercial farmers and traders allied with them in the farm and rural economy. The widespread distress in the countryside has tended to be obfuscated by the rich farmers hiding behind the famished mass of the people in the countryside to enlarge their demands for remunerative prices for their marketable surpluses and subsidies for a variety of inputs — all in the name of giving relief to the poor farmer.

Food security does not mean merely creating conditions for dispensing with the import of foodgrains but also access of the mass of the poor and deprived humanity with little or no purchasing power. The increase in the domestic production of foodgrains at all costs during the last two decades to the level where their imports could be dispensed with has been rightly regarded as a proud achievement of the Indian people, above all, the farmers. However, with access to food still denied to millions, who do not have adequate purchasing power and suffer the pangs of hunger and malnutrition, food security in the real sense of the term has not been achieved. What is really galling is that even partial food security so far achieved is now in the danger of being destroyed.

The rigging of the market, so that foodgrains supplies tend to flow towards high income consumption centres where open market prices are high, boosts the income of surplus farmers and profits of the traders only. The wholesome concept of treating foodgrain stocks with the government as real resources for mass relief and rural development has been discarded.

The productive and gainful economic activity in India is still linked very much to agriculture as the primary sector of the economy. At least 65 per cent of the population depends on agriculture and related activities for subsistence. It is disconcerting, therefore, that the leadership of the NDA coalition government is responding belatedly and weakly to the disastrous impact of the drought on not just agriculture but the entire economy of India. To revive agricultural production from the precipitate fall this year will require special efforts, costly inputs and efficient extension services. All this required to face a grim situation is missing in official policy responses. The government’s economic policy for all sectors of the economy has indeed become so grossly disoriented that it is neither able nor even willing to face the problems that have arisen because of large shortfalls in the critical sectors of the Indian economy. Energy and water management is a shambles. More effort is going into the search for foreign investment as the panacea rather the mobilisation of domestic resources, human, financial and material, and their deployment under a right order of priorities.

The latest survey shows that the fall in agricultural production because of the monsoon failure this year will be of the order of 20 per cent. The growth of the GDP in the current year is bound, therefore, to be depressed. It is stupid to argue, as the Finance Ministry and Reserve Bank of India have done that industry and services sectors are immune from the adverse impact of drought and the fall in agricultural production and incomes. The idea that prices will be stable at their comfortable level of the last three years is also facile. There are bound to be supply shortages in essential consumption goods, which are already building inflationary pressures in the economy. There will be the stagnation of investment and a fall in demand for industry and services. The economy will sink deeper into stagflation.

The rich commercial farmers, which have gained enormously in the post market-friendly reform years, are still hankering after more gains. The wages in real terms for agricultural workers and artisans have fallen. The combined effect on the different segments of the peasantry is bound to sharpen the conflict of interests in the rural economy and society. The rich farm lobby is hard at work to take advantage of this situation. The NDA government is wilting under its pressure. This is shown by the increase at the procurement prices of kharif crops. The NDA government is guided by populist notions too which, however, outlived their utility as instruments to garner even political-electoral support for any political party, much less for the ruling party.

The bulk of the incremental production in agriculture has tended in recent years to be from commercial farming on large and medium farms rather than substance farming on small farms in spite of their efficiency in terms of production per hectare of land. Subsistence farming and the share of small and marginal farmers in land ownership are not being protected. Employment in the rural areas is shrinking and large-scale migration of labour from the rural to urban areas is taking place. This may have serious social and political implications. The social base of the ruling elite and its organs of administration are becoming so fragile that good governance is ceasing to be sustainable.

The writer is a veteran economic commentator.

MIDDLE

The ultrasound show!!
S. Zahur H. Zaidi

LAST Wednesday morning I spent a few minutes watching my second child. That might not sound like something special, but consider this: The child is not even born yet.

The stork isn’t scheduled to visit our house again until this winter. But thanks to a modern day miracle called Ultrasound, my wife and I have already had the opportunity to get a brief glimpse of the little bundle of joy.

I am not a doctor. I am just another father trying to balance my time between a really taxing government job and my growing family. When we had our first child the doctors did all the checks. I only did simpler things like driving my wife to the hospital and settling enormous medical bills. The examination area was strictly out of bounds for fathers. I had no notion of how things happen. So I will be darned if I can explain to you how this ultrasound business works.

We were on a short vacation when a friend, who is a sonologist offered to do an ultrasound in my presence. All I knew was that sonologists were a variety of doctors who made loads of money, which was evident from his lavish living and the size of his house. We agreed. The next thing I realised was that this friend put my wife on a table and then proceeded to place on her stomach a little device that was connected with wires to a TV set. My wife looked like a human VCR. I kept half expecting her eyes to start flashing “12:00...... 12:00.....12:00.”

My friend turned on the TV screen and faster than you can say “medical reimbursement,” I saw the black and white image of our little baba or baby. We couldn’t tell because unlike our art movies these days the ultrasound did not feature frontal nudity.

As my wife and I stared in amazement at the screen, my friend pointed out the baby’s head and also pointed to a little quivering object that was shaking like jelly. “That is the baby’s heart,” he explained. Then he turned on the sound track and my wife and I were actually able to hear the child’s heartbeat. It sounded remarkably like drumbeats from A.R. Rehman’s latest album.

I kept expecting the kid to hold up a sign that read: “Hi Daddy! Send money!”

My wife and I had a great time watching our unborn child star in his or her own ultrasound TV show. The only disturbing moment came when my good friend asked my wife: “Do you feel a twinge on your left side?”

My wife misunderstood. She thought the sonologist said: “I see a twin on your left side.” She screamed: “Twins?!” She then started to jump off the examination table to give me a home vasectomy.

Fortunately my friend and I were able to calm her down and reassure her that there was only one bundle of joy appearing on the screen.

I have seen some really amazing things in my lifetime. I have seen snow-covered mountain peaks in the hottest summer months. I have seen politicians speak the truth and I have actually met several honest police officers. But I am telling you, I have never seen anything more amazing than the ultrasound image of a child whom I hope to hold in my arms sometime this winter.

FOCUS

Ansal Plaza encounter: a staged act?
Ram Varma

THOUSANDS of happy shoppers who had thronged the popular shopping complex Ansal Plaza in New Delhi on the eve of Divali had thanked their stars (and the Delhi Police) and heaved a huge sigh of relief when they learnt that two Pakistani terrorists equipped with AK-47 rifles and revolvers, intent on enacting an Akshardham, were gunned down on their way up from the Plaza basement by a vigilant special task force waiting for them on a tip-off. It was a happenstance too good to be true. Grateful Delhiites showered fulsome praise on the police for the alertness and alacrity of this neat operation. The nation was saved another gory spectacle a la Akshardham. We generally chastise the police for its lack of intelligence and lethargy. For once it had put up a show of real professionalism.

But the next day there were clouds of skepticism on this lustrous achievement. No one doubted that the killed young men were extremists, possibly from Pakistan, although Pakistan denied it. But it appeared as if it was not a genuine encounter but a choreographed act. Some “knowledgeable” people smelt a rat or two in this “clean” operation. One of the terrorists seemed to have a black eye, as if he had taken a severe beating before coming to enact his role. And the terrorist who had collapsed to the ground, hit by a hail of bullets from the police, was still carefully holding the revolver in his hand, his finger on the unsmoked weapon! There were some unanswered questions about the car they had come in, and the police put off their post-mortem examination on some technical grounds. To cap it all, a local doctor who claimed to be an eyewitness said that contrary to the police version there was no fire from the terrorists. Only the police had fired. There was no encounter. It was a brutal, cold-blooded killing. Kuldip Nayar, the conscience keeper of the nation, promptly wrote a letter to the National Human Rights Commission, demanding an enquiry into this “encounter”. The commission asked the police for truth, the whole truth and nothing but truth. And thereby hangs a tale.

I am reminded of a brief dialogue I had about 16 years ago on the subject of a police “encounter” (or rather a non-encounter) with Rupan Deol Bajaj who was then posted as Special Secretary, Home, in Punjab, and I was working as Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister in Haryana. These were post-Bluestar days. Rajiv Gandhi had become Prime Minister after Indira Gandhi had been assassinated. The doused fires of terrorism were again smouldering in Punjab.

On that day there was a news item in these columns that some terrorists who were being taken in a police van to a district court had given the slip and decamped from police custody en route. I was troubled by this news. I mentioned it to Rupan Deol Bajaj, expressing my dismay at such crass negligence on the part of the police. “What kind of police force do you have? I had said. “How difficult it is to catch terrorists, and now these useless fellows let them slip away so easily.” She had a little laugh at my naivete and said: “You are occupying a chair from where the real face of government can be clearly discerned. Surely you know better than that. Do I have to tell you what is meant by ‘decamping from police custody’?”

I was only half reassured by her reply. In fact as I mulled it over, I was even more troubled than before, but I kept it to myself. What Rupan Deol had meant was that the terrorists had been taken care of, saving all the pother of taking them to court and setting up evidence against them and all that. And I should relax. But there were nagging doubts in my mind. Suppose the police had a sudden surge of kindness and let them off. After all, they too were human. Or they had extracted a hefty sum from them, as was more likely. For in this case they were not even showing an “encounter”. One did not approve of it, but the good thing about an “encounter” was that there was that there was a corpse. Here one could not be sure. What if they were double-crossing? But at least this story was in line with the public image of the police. It did not stretch public credibility as the Ansal Plaza encounter did. If what Rupan Deol had said was correct, the Punjab Police had willingly invited public calumny on themselves in “public interest” in stark contrast with the Delhi Police, which had hoped to be covered with glory.

It is for the reader to decide which of the two was right? if you ask Kuldip Nayar, he would say both are wrong. On the other hand, K.P.S. Gill would commend both and add that there was no bloody alternative.

It is correct that it is almost impossible to get the terrorists punished under our prevailing legal system. For one thing, no one dare stand in the witness box to testify against them. Then there is the question of the law’s delay compounded by the high three-digit corruption rating of our country. It is the same in Bangladesh, where I had gone last month. Prime Minister Khalida Zia had called the Army on October 17 to nab criminals and terrorists. Everyone seemed to be happy at the development. In the 10 days before my departure they had arrested some 3,000 people in a countrywide operation. In the meanwhile, 10 terrorists, averaging one a day, had died of “heart failure” during interrogation in Army custody, but none seemed to lose his sleep about it. They seemed to be convinced that it was all for the general good.

(The writer is a former Chief Secretary of Haryana)

Why does marriage set alarm bells ringing?
Alex Mattis

LIVE-IN couples are encouraged to maintain their independence and a reasonably separate social life. Married couples, by contrast, are widely perceived as a single unit.

That, according to some people, is the way it should be. ‘The whole point of marriage is to create a strong central relationship,’ says Liz Percival, director of 2-in-2-1, a marriage support group in the UK. ‘For it to flourish, you have to let go of individual desires. Remaining too independent will damage the marriage — you have to serve each other’s needs, rather than your own.’

Married couples seem to have greater powers of veto over who their partners see or don’t. As archaic as it sounds, marriage still suggests some notion of ownership. ‘It used to be that you belonged to your father until you got married, when ownership was passed to your husband,’ says Dr Petra Boynton, a British relationships psychologist. ‘While that obviously isn’t the case today, we can sometimes see a hangover of those attitudes.’ Only today, the idea of ownership is mutual.

There is also often the sense that, by getting married, you’re letting down the gang. As one (cohabiting) friend says, ‘When mates get married, it’s like when they revise for their school exams, or get a pension, or give up smoking. I know it’s a good idea, but it’s a bit unsporting.’

Ask most people if they want to get married, and they will roll their eyes and come over all cynical: ‘What, marriage? Me? Naah.’ An active desire to be married will never be a fashionable thing. It still has a whiff of conforming about it, of giving up on feckless youth, and for women it will probably always feel slightly like a betrayal of the post-feminist legacy — as though all that rushing around having a career and generally taking control of your life was merely a front for your real desire to wear a large dress, nestle down, decorate and be looked after.

Beyond this, other aspects of marriage inspire suspicion and resentment. Married couples often appear to be more financially secure than their single or cohabiting equivalents. Their resources are pooled in a more formal way and protected legally; parents — who see grandchildren on the horizon — are inclined to chuck cash in their direction; they fritter less money in pubs and clubs, plus all those lovely presents!

Equally, in a climate where more and more marriages end in divorce, getting married strikes many as completely irrational. ‘Don’t make the mistake of thinking marriage offers security,’ says my father — somewhat ominously, because he’s been married for more than 30 years. But there’s no avoiding it. Getting married requires the same blind faith as religion. ‘I’m always surprised,’ says one friend archly, ‘and faintly disappointed, when intelligent people get married ’.

‘Getting married is often the biggest event in people’s lives,’ says Boynton. ‘People can get incredibly stressed over place names. And if you’re stressed, it’s only natural to talk about the reasons why. That said, it can be draining if you have to listen to it.’ The Guardian

TRENDS & POINTERS

A diet that halves heart attack rate

PARIS: Fancy a spot of curried moussaka? Or, for a snack, how about nan bread with a tossed tomato and goat’s cheese salad? A new study suggests South Asia can halve its rate of heart attacks if it copied some ideas from the famously fit-making food of the Mediterranean rim.

Experts recruited a thousand volunteers to a programme based in Moradabad in UP, all of whom had a history of cardiovascular problems. Half were given a diet rich in whole grains, fruits, vegetables, walnuts and almonds, supplemented by soyabean oil or mustard seed oil — a near-equivalent to the olive oil that is the mainstay of Mediterranean food.

The other half ate conventional Asian food, but followed guidelines under the National Cholesterol Education Programme, which suggests people set a limit on their consumption of fat, especially unsaturated fats. After two years, the group that followed the “Indo-Mediterranean diet” had 39 heart attacks compared with 76 who had eaten only the Asian food, and the number of sudden cardiac deaths was likewise halved.

“We noted a significant reduction in serum (blood) cholesterol concentration and other risk factors in both groups but especially in the intervention diet group,” the authors add.

The research was led by R.B. Singh, a professor in nutrition and cardiac health at Moradabad Hospital and Research Centre, and Elliot Berry, a professor of public health at Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem. They have reported their work in The Lancet, the British medical weekly.

The traditional Mediterranean diet has, in addition to olive oil, lots of fish, fruit, nuts and fresh vegetables, in addition to whole grains such as rice and ground wheat. Meals are often supplemented by a glass or two of red wine. AFP

Lunar missions fight ‘hoax’ claim

Thirty years after man last walked on the moon, the lunar landings are struggling to shake off rumours that they were nothing but a monstrous hoax. To the vast majority of people, the six Apollo missions were among the most magnificent achievements of all time — and testimony from the astronauts, the lunar rock samples, photos and film footage root the landings in indisputable fact.

Not so for a tiny band of diehards, who have made it their goal to expose the missions as a gigantic con, mainly aimed at persuading Moscow that America had beaten it in the race to the moon.

“The astronauts never made it beyond the earth orbit,” Bart Sibrel, a self-described investigative journalist, declares on his website (www.moonmovie.com). “The goal was to fool the Soviet Union about US strategic ability during the height of the cold war.” French “independent investigator” Philippe Lheureux has published a book, “Lumieres sur la lune” (Lights on the Moon), which insists that images released by NASA were doctored. AFP

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

That man really enjoys his food who feeds also the poor emaciated beggar that goes about oppressed with hunger begging from door to door. He will have plenty of wealth as a result of such philanthropic deeds and his charity will secure his friends in his own need.

He is not a true friend who does not feed a man of his own persuasion who, oppressed with hunger, goes to him for help.

A strong man who can afford to help the weaker seeking for help, should surely succour the latter. He should, in doing so, look to the long road he has still to cross on the journey of life during which, no one is sure, what may happen, for, riches go on revolving like the wheels of a chariot — now going to one owner, now to another.

A person of charitable disposition and ready to succour one in need, is superior to him who does not help. Therefore, every man should make it his duty to perform his journey in life only by means of daily righteous dealings with all.

— The Rigveda, X,117, 78-79, 82, 82

***

Among the wealthy, compassionate men claim the richest wealth, for material wealth is possessed even by contemptible men.

— The Tirukural, 241

***

Uma, those who are devoted to Rama’s feet and abjure lust, vanity and anger look upon the whole world as manifestation of their own Lord; to whom, then, can they be hostile?

— Shri Ramacharitamanasa, Uttara Kanda

***

O Uma, ascetic practice and prayer, charity and penance, performance of sacrifice, vows and other religious observances fail to evoke Rama’s compassion to the same degree as unalloyed devotion does.

— Shri Ramacharitamanasa, Lanka Kanda